On Timothy’s return, soon after 1 Co, with this
ievous news, Paul wrote ‘out of anguish of ieart’ the lost epistle between 1 and 2 Co (not to be identified with 2 Co 10-13", as by Hausrath and Pfleiderer ; these chapters have nothing todo with the affair of the ἀδικηθείς), conveyed by Titus (before this time employed at Corinth on thie business of the collection, 2 Co 85 9** 128%) in which Paul called on the Church to condemn the ἀδικήσας and thus ‘ show itself clear in the matter.’ This the Corinthians did—at least ‘the majority’ of them (2°)—with earnest apologies to Paul and Timothy (7"-*). Paul had sent Titus in confidence that such satisfaction would be given; but Titus’ delay in returning awakened the most distressing apprehensions (213-13. 75-8), He was compelled to leave Ephesus, and, after awaiting his messenger for some time at Troas, on to Macedonia still in painful suspense. At the moment when he sent Titus from Ephesus, Paul was disposed to come round by way of Corinth to Macedonia,— supposing, of course, that the Corinthians sub- mitted (cf. 18 and 7'*),—and Titus had intimated that the apostle, contrary to the intention of 1 Co 165-7, might thus give them ‘a second joy.’ But this was now impossible (Paul would not come without better news from Corinth, 2” *), and the apostle reverted to the earlier plan of travel. He must have apprised Titus of this Wange, with directions to meet him in Troas or Macedonia; and in this way the news of St. Paul’s illness reached Corinth before Titus left (1% 77). The Corinthians were full of sympathy; at the same time, reflexions were made on the apostle’s seem- ing fickleness, which touched him keenly (1'*-*),
he illness from which Paul sutfered between 1 and 2 Co was severe and all but fatal (2 Co 1° 6°). This affliction left a deep mark in his experience; it overshadows2Co. Chs. 4'*-5'° record his thoughts as he then lay confronting the last enemy. For the first time he realizes the likelihood that he will die before the Lord’s return; we do not find him subsequently speaking of the παρουσία in the first person plural of 1 Th and1Co. The terrible closing scenes at Ephesus, the revolt of Galatia and Corinth, and this prostrating attack of sickness, by their concurrent effect brought him into the lowest depths of affliction (1*" 47:13 7° *); and God is now to him, above all, ‘the Father of compas- sions.’ It was the darkest hour that the apostle had known. His life and his mission seemed both to be ending in defeat.
The acute personal question raised by the ἀδικήσας at Corinth is terminated; but the larger contro- versy remains, and has been exasperated through the arrival of Judman emissaries (3' 11% * 12"). Of these men and their proceedings Titus, on his return from Corinth, gave a full report. The Church, while iridactly loyal to Paul, had received the ‘false apostles’ and ‘deceitful workers’; it was being imposed on and was too likely to be seduced by them (117), Their self-commen- dations and disparagements of Paul, at whose ex- pense they exalted the Twelve, were listened to with unworthy tolerance. He is compelled in
712 PAUL THE APOSTLE
2 Co 3-6, aid more polemically in the concluding chapters, to vindicate at length both his character and apostleship. The contrast, in temper and purport, between 2 Co 1-7 and 10-13, which leads some able scholars (¢.g. Hausrath, Schmiedel) to regard these sections as distinct epistles, is due to the peculiar situation at Corinth, to the fact that, while the majority of the Church had rallied to Paul (2°), there remained a minority all the more embittered, in which the newly - arrived agitators found the means for operating upon the entire community. The four parties of 1 Co have resolved themselves in a few months into two; and 2Co is at once a message of peace to the well-disposed, and a thunderbolt launched by the apostle against the Judaizing promoters of ‘another gospel’ and his own malignant detractors.
This powerful Epistle appears to have subdued the mutiny at Corinth, for Paul carried out his purpose of spending the winter there before his journey to Jerusalem (Ac 20**; cf. 2 Co 2'), and there he wrote the calm and deliberate Zp. to the Romans, the tone of which reflects his softened mood. This conciliatory temper befitted the apostle addressing a strange Church, where Jewish be- lievers are numerous but, as he supposes, not un- friendly to his gospel. Meanwhile Titus, attended for this purpose by two companions (2 Co 81%), is commissioned in conveying 2 Co to conclude the business of ‘the collection,’ which had doubtless been hindered by strife; chs. 8 and 9 of 2Co are devoted to this matter. In 1 Co 16% Paul had suggested the election of deputies to convey the charity to Jerus. ; such election the Macedonians had now made (2 Co 8"): Ac 20% furnishes a list of these deputies, as they gathered to accompany St. Paul to Palestine. Prevented by a plot of the Jews against his life from taking ship at Corinth for Syria, Paul went round by way of Phili pi
Troas (Ac oor Ne
(where he spent Passover) an His voyage thence and arrival at Jerusalem are fully described by St. Luke (Ac 20. 21), now St.